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Of course, you can make your own luck, improve your lot in life, catch the moon from the gutter. Please stop me before I cliché myself right off the page.

But certain things in life do not come with a choice. Hair colour (well, at least at first). The size of your feet. The shape of your nose. The ability to decipher your cellphone bill.

The place where you are born.

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This last one is a biggie. Babies have a habit of being born whenever and sometimes wherever they please. They don’t care if you’re at the grocery store or having your nails done or flying down the highway on the way home from your aunt’s third wedding (keep the receipt). They don’t care if they are in downtown Toronto or on the west side of Outer Nowhere.

They just decide that they are coming, and then they do.

I am not a particularly religious person, other than believing that there is something out there somewhere. But I do believe in a sort of cosmic luck of the draw. For the sake of argument, let’s just say countless little souls are floating around out there in the ether. So how does it happen that the stork picks up one little soul in particular, and gently drops it here, on your Canadian doorstep?

All this is to say that I feel the mere act of being born in Canada is one of the luckiest things that can happen to a child.

There are many people who will debate this, and quite rightly point to things like the lack of a national child care policy, which leaves many families scrambling to afford a safe haven for their kid when both parents are at work.

As a country, it’s true, there are still many inequities, and things we could improve upon. That’s not even taking into account the weather, which has been known to require a parka in the morning and flip-flops by afternoon.

But on the day that I write this, our youngest kid is heading in to a day of high school graduation events, both official (involving a suit and a diploma) and unofficial (involving rumours of a party somewhere).

And, aside from figuring out what I myself will wear to the graduation ceremony (sleeveless? Heels or sandals?) it’s a good time to think about a few other things, too. It’s a good time to think about what my life as a parent would be like if I didn’t live in Canada, and if my kids came in to the world at some less fortunate place, instead of at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto.

For instance: In Canada, if you find yourself pregnant, you go to the doctor and they take care of you. You don’t have to pay them. Of course, you might have to wait a while for an appointment. You might have to take a bus or two to get there. But you will get there.

In Canada, when your kid turns 4 or so, you ship them off to kindergarten. They’ll probably cry, at some point. Fourteen years later, with a lot of hard work on their part and yours, there they are on the stage, maybe even at your old high school, wearing a robe and holding a diploma. You’ll probably cry, at some point.

But the point is, they got to go to school. Every day. Think about all the kids around the world who, even on this day in the 21st century, still never get that chance.

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